Imperial Unity
British Consulate
New York City
June 10, 1919
"The Right Honorable David Lloyd George,
Sir:
I was highly honored by your personal letter of May 24 last (written same week as Paris meeting), and wish to thank you for the cordial expression of approval of my work which it contained. You were very good enough to require from me a frank and confidential account of the campaign conducted under my direction in this country, together with such suggestions as might further help to lead it speedily to a successful conclusion. As the campaign had been under way for a considerable time before you were called to direct the destinies of England, I shall review it from its commencement, and, emboldened by your sanction, I shall freely make whatever suggestions seem to me good.
From the moment of my arrival here, it was evident to me that such an Anglo-American alliance as would ultimately result in the peaceful return of the American Colonies to the dominion of the Crown could be brought about only with the consent of the dominant group of the controlling clans.
For those who can afford the universities, we are, as I have already mentioned, plentifully supplying British-born or trained professors, lecturers, and presidents. A Canadian-born admiral now heads the United States Naval College. We are arranging for a greater interchange of professors between the two countries. The student interchange could be much improved. The Rhodes scholarships are inadequate in number. I would suggest that the Carnegie trustees be approached to extend to American students the benefits of the scheme by which Scottish students are subsidised at Scottish universities. If necessary, a grant from the treasury should be obtained for this excellent work, which however, should remain for the present -- at least outwardly -- private enterprise...
Through the Red Cross, the Scout movement, the YMC, the church, and other humane, religious, and quasi-religious organizations, we have created an atmosphere of international effort which strengthens the idea of unity of the English-speaking world. In the co-ordination of this work, Mr. Raymond Fosdick, formerly of the Rockefeller Foundation, has been especially conspicuous. I would also like to mention President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University, who has eloquently advocated this form of internationalism and carefully emphasize its distinction from the false internationalism which is infecting the proletariat.
The Overseas Club in this country now contains nearly hundred thousand pledged members with a Journal of their own. Our thanks are due to Lord St. George's, St. David's, St. Andrew's, and Pilgrim Clubs, together with the Daughters of the Empire. the Prince of Wales Fund, and the other association and guilds connected with our multitudinous war charities enable us to pervade all sections and classes of the country, and provide us with a force of empire builders whose loyalty an services are both invaluable to us and highly appreciated by the native colonists.
The censorship, together with our monopoly of cables and our passport control of passengers, enables us to hold all American newspapers as isolated from the non-American world as if they had been in another planet instead of in another hemisphere The realization of this by the Associated Press and the other universal news gatherers -- except Hearst -- was most helpful in bringing only our point of view to the papers they served.
British-born editors and reporters now create imperial sentiment in most American newspapers. As their identity and origins are not usually known, they can talk and write for us as Americans to Americans.
Below that level, imperial unity cannot be securely established upon the debris of the Constitution here. We will not passively permit this unity to be now menaced when it is all but perfect. Has not America, while still maintaining an outward show of independence, yielded to our wishes in the Panama Canal tolls and Canadian fisheries' disputes, as was fitting and filial? Was not America happy to fight our war in Europe? Was not America, like Canada, willing not only to pay her own war expenses but also to loan us money for ours? Was not America, like Canada, content to seek nothing in return for her war duty, so long as the motherland was completely indemnified in Egypt and the rest of Africa, in Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and elsewhere? Was not America as proud to be honored by knighthood and lesser titulary distinctions, as Canada was, or, rather, more proud?
Has not President Wilson cancelled the big Navy program and dutifully conceded to us the command of the seas, confident that we shall defend America against all future foes that may threaten our supremacy, just as we defended America and Canada against Germany? In matters lingual, legal and financial, fiscal, commercial, social evangelical, administrative, martial, naval, educational -- are not in all these matters the established relations of America to England, in kind -- if not precisely in degree -- identical with the relations of the other colonies and dominions to the Crown? Indeed, I might justifiably sustain the thesis that so-distant American Republic is now more happily and more closely bound to the Empire than are, for example, the ungrateful and insolent colonies which lately were the Boer Republics.
As long as President Wilson, with our Canadian-born Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Franklin Lane, with our Scotch-born Secretary of Labor, Mr. W. B. Wilson, and with our London-born Mr. Samuel Gompers, -- now controls the administration, imperial unity will daily grow more intimate and more perfect. But I regret to inform you that our committee on American Elections has reported (Appendix 38) that no matter how lavishly we finance the next election, the Wilson administration will pass, and with it, perchance, that absolute administrative control over the Legislature, which has meant so much to us. Willful, wanton, and wicked men will unite in the next election with labor and those industrialists whose profit-patriotism ratio has been allowed to fall below the threshold of loyalty to imperial unity. These combined forces of disorder will seek to elect a legislature which will attempt to make the administration responsible to it, instead of to us and our auxiliaries, and will strive to rend the bonds which bind this colony to the motherland, for the sole, selfish, and seditious purpose of erecting a separate, national, economic unit independent of us -- and even perhaps, competing with us. We must, therefore, hasten to remove from this legislature, with the aid of our supporters here, such of its powers as could be used against imperial unity.
In the financial world the Anglo-American alliance is a well-established fact. And as the consortium for China, and the security company for Mexico show, our brokers and their aids have become the unchallenged financiers of the world. We have been particularly fortunate in our fiscal agents here, Messrs Pierpont Morgan & Company. The commissions they charged, both as our brokers and purchasing agents no doubt were high enough to warrant their summary treatment at the hands of Mr. Balfour during his visit here. But they advantageously placed our many bond issues and every American holder of these bonds having now a stake in the Empire is a defender of its integrity and a potential supporter of its extension over here. Their services in putting this country into the war have not been altruistic, but they were nonetheless effective. They contributed liberally to our Americanization campaign. They ousted Miss Boardman, and through Messrs. Taft and H. P. Davidson they nationalized and directed the American Red Cross, and then internationalized it under the direction of Mr. H. P. Davison Through Mr. Thomas Lamont they purchased Harpers Magazine and the New York Evening Post. Through advertisers they control, they have exerted widespread influence on newspaper policy. Messrs. Lamont and Davidson gave you valuable aid at the peace conference. They loaned $200,000,000 to Japan that our ally might build a fleet to compete with America on the Pacific carrying routes. Their attempts to retain for us control of the international mercantile marine are well known to you. And I would he amiss if I did not remind you that they relieved the government of considerable embarrassment by pensioning worthily the widow of our late Ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, at a time when the antagonism of Lord Northcliffe made it impossible for us officially to do so. As the greater part of their capital is invested within the Empire. the Government of His Majesty will doubtless have opportunity to appreciate the value of the services of Messrs. Pierpont Morgan & Company.
Through our fiscal agents here and our aids who act for other Allied countries, as Sir Clifford Sifton acts for Rumania, we have become the world's purchasers. Moreover, the war has made us the custodian of the greater part of the world's raw materials. With moneys lent to us by the American Government for war purposes, we have. acting through quasi-American companies by the aid of Mr. Connor Guthrie, obtained control of the large oil fields in California and in Costa Rica. And through the nationalization of His Majesty's Government of the Cowdray, Pearson, and Royal Dutch Shell interests in Mexico, we having become masters of the Mexican, Canadian, Rumanian, Armenian. Persian, and lessor oil fields, now largely control the oil fields of the world and thereby the world's transportation and industry. We have not yet succeeded in controlling the pipe lines owned by the Standard Oil Company, and its subsidiaries, for those companies have long been established. But, although uncontrolled companies may continue to get their oil to the seaboard, the proposed system of preferential treatment at our universal oiling stations for ships supplied at the port of departures with British oil (Appendix 37) will prevent the use of any oil but ours on the high seas.
This control would enable us to exert such pressure as would make American industrial interests amenable to His Majesty's pleasure. But it would be unwise to make disciplinary use of our fuel power before we secure remission of our $4,000,000,000 debt. Otherwise, the American industrial interests might retaliate by forcing the United States Government to exact from us the agreed interest, to maintain tariff barriers against our merchandise, and to withdraw support from the rate of exchange. Which make our labor and resources for years pay tribute to this country an unnatural, unfilial, and unthinkable proceeding. We are conducting a vigorous campaign for the cancellation of this war debt, on the grounds (a) that we fought America's fight for her for 2 years, while she was prospering in cowardice and (b) that at least the material burdens should be distributed justly, if the world is to be made safe for democracy. . Synchronously with this agitation for the remission of our debt, we are agitating for further loans of American money to rebuild our markets in Europe. There is no possibility of these two agitations endangering their mutual success, for we have repeatedly proved beyond question that the American mind cannot synchronously fix and correlate facts, with two cognate items on the statements to be judged each on its merits. Hence, we are able in a cloud of candor to state the merit of the loan -- viz, that unless the money be lent to us we cannot pay the interest on it. in these agitations we are receiving valuable, if not wholly disinterested, aid from our financial auxiliaries and fiscal agents (J. P. Morgan & Co.)
In Mexico our friends made a tentative adventure with the gallant Blanquet, but it miscarried, perhaps owing to a slight misunderstanding between the bond interests and the industrial interests. However, we are quietly continuing our work in Mexico until the United States Government shall be put in a position to take it over. An American war with Mexico would cost us nothing; it would satisfy certain American industrial interests; it would guarantee out title to the Mexican oil fields; it would humble, by impoverishing, this purse-proud people; it would give us an opportunity to show the American that he isolated in the world needs our protection against our ally, Japan; and while America was busy warring we would enjoy a clear field in the European, African, and Asiatic trade, together with the monopoly of the markets of a South America hostile to the Monroe Doctrinaries of democracy. For these reasons our press is fully reporting Mexican outrages, but a strange apathy seems to have fallen on the people, an apathy from which only border raids or special atrocities will arouse them. . .
In other words, we must quickly act to transfer its dangerous sovereignty from this colony to the custody of the Crown. We must, in short, now bring America with in the Empire. God helping us, we can do no other. The first visible step in this direction has been taken; President Wilson has accepted and sponsored the plan for a League of Nations which we prepared for him. We have wrapped this plan in the peace treaty so that the world must accept from us the League or a continuance of the war. The League is in substance the Empire with America admitted on the same basis as our other colonies.
The effectiveness of the League will depend upon the power with which it can be endowed, and that will hinge upon the skill with which the cardinal functions of the American legislature are transferred to the executive Council of the League. Any abrupt change may startle the ignorant American masses and rouse them to action against it. And us. Our best policy, therefore, would be to appoint President Wilson first president of the League. When the fourteen points seemed to our Government twice seven daily sins, I analyzed with care his diverse and numerous notes and discourses and divided them into their two parts: One, the Wilson creed, "I believe in open covenants and in the freedom of the seas," etc.; and two, the Wilson commandments, "Might shall not prevail over right, the strong shall not oppress the weak," etc. From the "too proud to fight" and "he kept us out of war" episodes, I ventured to deduce (September 29, 1918, Appendix 36) that he would at the appropriate moment oblige us by transferring the "not" from his commandments to his creed without as much as a "may I not," and in such a way that his people will be none the wiser.
The plain people of this country are inveterate and incurable hero worshipers. They are, however, sincere in sentiment; and for a hero to become established in the public shrine, he must first succeed in getting his name associated with the phrases and slogans that seem to reflect the undefined aspirations of the average inhabitant. When this has been accomplished the allegiance is at once transferred from the sentiment to the sentimentalist, from the ideal to the maker of the longed-for phrase. No one understands this peculiarity of the native behavior better than Mr. Wilson, which accounts largely for his exceptional usefulness to us. He knows that Americans will not scrutinise any performance too closely, provided their faith in the performer has been adequately established. Mr. Wilson has since made the transfer amid American acclamation. In the same way he will now be able to satisfy them that far from surrendering their independence to the League they are actually extending their sovereignty by it. He alone can satisfy them on this. He alone can father an anti-Bolshevik act which judicially interpreted -- will enable appropriate punitive measures to be applied to any American who may be unwise enough to assert that America must again declare her independence. And he alone, therefore, is qualified to act for us as first president of the League.
I confess I am a little uneasy lest in the exigencies of diplomatic combat, Mr. Wilson may not have found the joy he anticipated from matching his wits against the best brains of Europe. He is easily slighted and remarkably vindictive. It is the highest degree desirable that any traces of resentment his mind may be harboring against us should be radically removed before he returns. I would, therefore, suggest that the work of adulation planned in Appendix 32 should be instructed to consult the inventories I have prepared (appendixes 45-83), which show that he is now surfeited with diamond stomachers, brooches, and bracelets, Gobelin tapestries, mosaics, and vases, gold caskets, and plates.
The program we arranged for his visit to England (appendix 33) including a royal reception at Buckingham Palace, with which the President was well pleased. The fruitful visit of the President to the King should be returned as early as possible. I would suggest that as soon as the President is settled once more in the White House, the visit should be returned by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, who would be an admirable representative of His Royal Sire, and would satisfy President Wilson's sense of fitness. It is perhaps unfortunate that there is not a Presidential daughter of the Prince's age, for such a union would have greatly advanced our purpose not only with the American people, but also with a President who feels that lese majeste should be punishable with 20 years' imprisonment, and who acts as if he considered his son-in-law, Mr. McAdoo, as his heir apparent.
Too great attention cannot be given at this time to the Presidential peculiarities, for his devotion to our purpose will depend upon our ability to pander to them. I would suggest that the new ambassador to Washington should be chosen only after the most careful thought. He should not be too clever, lest Mr. Wilson shun him. He should be able to evince hilarity at the most venerable jest, no matter how often he may have to suffer it. This qualification is vitally important whether Mr. Wilson's "humor" is merely assumed to perpetuate the "human" tradition established for Presidents by Lincoln, or whether it is studied descent from Jovelike isolation to Jovelike jest. The ambassador should be a Wilson worshiper. I enclose (appendix 34) resumes of the methods of worship practiced by various members of his inner circle. The appointee would do well to familiarize himself with them, and my services are at his disposal should be desire more extended information on the method of worship he selects. He should of course be a commoner, that we may not lose democratic favor -- preferably a professor -- and sufficiently subsidized to be able to entertain regally. If a list were submitted to Mr. Wilson he might be prepared to indicate all of whom he did not approve, and the one against whom he expressed no prejudices should be appointed. The pressing need of our embassy at Washington is not so much an ambassador as a gentleman in waiting to the President.
I would suggest that his powers as President of the League of Nations be left undefined for the present. He may be trusted to assume what power he can and to use it in the interests of the Crown.
A grant of a privy purse of $100,000,000 would prove most acceptable to him and would be useful for private espionage, private wars, Siberian railroads, etc. His appointment should be for life, and you might definitely promise him that any instructions he may care to convey concerning his successor will receive the most careful attention of His Majesty's Government.
Nevertheless, it would be well quickly to reinforce him in the presidency of the League of Nations by staging the first session of the League in Washington. This will convince these simple people that they are the League and its power resides in them. Their pride in this power should be exalted. Perhaps you, yourself, might condescend to visit this country. Or, if that be impracticable, you might send such noble statesmen, and stately noblemen, as will suffice to make of the first League session a spectacle of unsurpassed brilliance. Indeed, it would be well to commence at an early date a series of spectacles by which the mob may be diverted from any attempt to think too much of matters beyond their province. The success of the Joffre, Vivianti Balfour, and other missions in amusing the people while the country was quietly put into the war shows that similar missions would likewise amuse the people -- while the country was quietly put into the League. I would suggest that missions of thanksgiving to America be organized, and that His Majesty the King of the Belgians, Cardinal Mercier, Field Marshal Foch, Venizelos, and an eminent Italian or two be sent seriatim.
While awaiting these diversions for the vulgar, we are incessantly instructing them in the wonders of the League. Its praises are thundered by our press, decreed by our college presidents, and professed by our professors. Our authors, writers. and lecturers are analyzing its selected virtues for whomsoever will read or listen. As will be seen from appendix 39, circulars issued by the League of Nations committee, we have enlisted 8,000 pulpiteers or propagandists for the League. We have organized international and national synods, consistories, committees, conferences, convocations, conventions, councils, congresses, and assemblies, as well as their State, municipal, and district equivalents, to herald the birth of the League as the dawn of universal peace. A special Sunday will be observed as League Sunday in all churches. In this connection, may I remark that the appointment of Mr. Raymond Fosdick to the Secretariat of the League, has pleased not only the Rockefeller interests but also the less disingenuous uplifters, for it stamps the League as an endowed organization for promiscuous uplifting, under the triple crown of religion, respectability, and finance. Agriculturalists, bankers, brokers, chartered accounts, chemists, and all other functional groups capable of exerting organized professional, business, financial, or social pressure are meeting to endorse the League in the name of peace, progress, and prosperity.
The World's Peace Foundation has issued for us a series of League of Nations pamphlets, which, with our other literature, tax the mails to the limit of their capacity. Our film concerns are preparing an epoch-making picture entitled "The League of Nations." In brief, our entire system of thought control is working ceaselessly, tirelessly, ruthlessly, to insure the adoption of the League. And it will be adopted, for business wants peace, the righteous cannot resist a covenant, and the politicians, after shadow-boxing for patronage purposes, will yield valiantly lest the fate of the wanton and wilful pursue them.
By these means we hope smoothly to overcome all effective opposition on the on the part of our colony America to entering the League -- that is, the Empire. As soon as the League is functioning properly, His Majesty in response to loyal and repeated solicitation, might graciously be pleased to consent to restore to this people their ancient right to petition at the foot of the throne; to confer the ancient rank and style of governor general upon our Ambassador, that this colony may enjoy a status inferior to no other colony's; to establish the primacy of the Metropolitan See, with the Right Reverend Dr. Manning as first primate; to appoint Mr. Elihu Root lord chief justice of the colony, and to nominate Messrs. W. H. Taft, Nicholas Murray Butler, J. P. Morgan, Elizabeth Marbury, Adolph Ochs, and Thomas Lamont to the colonial privity council; as a special mark of royal and imperial condescension, to rename the Federal Capital of the Colony Georgetown, and lest section jealousy be thereby excited, to grant royal charters to the cities of Boston and Chicago entitling them thereafter to style themselves, respectively, Kingston and Guelf -- concisely to bestow in time and in measure such tokens of the bounty of the Crown as the fealty of the colonists merit.
Since that memorable day, September 19, 1877, on which the late Cecil Rhodes devised by will a fund "to and for the establishment, promotion, and development of a secret society -- the true aim of which and object of which shall be the extension of British rule throughout the world, and especially the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire" -- the energy and intelligence of England has not been spent in vain. It would perhaps be presumptuous of me to refer here to the admirable services rendered not only by LORD NORTHCLlFFE (the probable author of the report) and the corps of 12,000 trained workers whom he introduced here during the year as purchasing agents under the direction of Sir Campbell Stuart, but also the right Honorable Arthur J. Balfour, and by Lord Reading. But my report would be incomplete without a reference to Mr. Andrew Carnegie, of Skibo Castle, Sutherlandshire, and New York City. He unobtrusively assumed the mantle of the late Mr. Cecil Rhodes. Through the Carnegie Foundation, he obtained such control over the professorate of this country that even President Wilson was a suppliant for a Carnegie pension before this people and allied gratitude placed him beyond prospective want.
The Carnegie League to Enforce Peace and its affiliate League of Small Nations are even now leading the van in our fight. In the North American Review, June 1893, Mr. Carnegie wrote: "Let men say what they will, I say that as surely as the sun in the heavens once shone upon Britain and America united, so surely is it one morning to rise, to shine upon, to greet again, the reunited state -- the British-American union."
The object of Cecil Rhodes is almost attained. The day prophesied by Mr. Carnegie is near at hand, the day when the American Colonies will be in all things one with the motherland, one and indivisible. Only the last great battle remains to be. fought -- the battle to compel her acceptance of the terms of the League of Nations."
Colonel House
British Consulate
New York City
June 10, 1919
"The Right Honorable David Lloyd George,
Sir:
I was highly honored by your personal letter of May 24 last (written same week as Paris meeting), and wish to thank you for the cordial expression of approval of my work which it contained. You were very good enough to require from me a frank and confidential account of the campaign conducted under my direction in this country, together with such suggestions as might further help to lead it speedily to a successful conclusion. As the campaign had been under way for a considerable time before you were called to direct the destinies of England, I shall review it from its commencement, and, emboldened by your sanction, I shall freely make whatever suggestions seem to me good.
From the moment of my arrival here, it was evident to me that such an Anglo-American alliance as would ultimately result in the peaceful return of the American Colonies to the dominion of the Crown could be brought about only with the consent of the dominant group of the controlling clans.
For those who can afford the universities, we are, as I have already mentioned, plentifully supplying British-born or trained professors, lecturers, and presidents. A Canadian-born admiral now heads the United States Naval College. We are arranging for a greater interchange of professors between the two countries. The student interchange could be much improved. The Rhodes scholarships are inadequate in number. I would suggest that the Carnegie trustees be approached to extend to American students the benefits of the scheme by which Scottish students are subsidised at Scottish universities. If necessary, a grant from the treasury should be obtained for this excellent work, which however, should remain for the present -- at least outwardly -- private enterprise...
Through the Red Cross, the Scout movement, the YMC, the church, and other humane, religious, and quasi-religious organizations, we have created an atmosphere of international effort which strengthens the idea of unity of the English-speaking world. In the co-ordination of this work, Mr. Raymond Fosdick, formerly of the Rockefeller Foundation, has been especially conspicuous. I would also like to mention President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University, who has eloquently advocated this form of internationalism and carefully emphasize its distinction from the false internationalism which is infecting the proletariat.
The Overseas Club in this country now contains nearly hundred thousand pledged members with a Journal of their own. Our thanks are due to Lord St. George's, St. David's, St. Andrew's, and Pilgrim Clubs, together with the Daughters of the Empire. the Prince of Wales Fund, and the other association and guilds connected with our multitudinous war charities enable us to pervade all sections and classes of the country, and provide us with a force of empire builders whose loyalty an services are both invaluable to us and highly appreciated by the native colonists.
The censorship, together with our monopoly of cables and our passport control of passengers, enables us to hold all American newspapers as isolated from the non-American world as if they had been in another planet instead of in another hemisphere The realization of this by the Associated Press and the other universal news gatherers -- except Hearst -- was most helpful in bringing only our point of view to the papers they served.
British-born editors and reporters now create imperial sentiment in most American newspapers. As their identity and origins are not usually known, they can talk and write for us as Americans to Americans.
Below that level, imperial unity cannot be securely established upon the debris of the Constitution here. We will not passively permit this unity to be now menaced when it is all but perfect. Has not America, while still maintaining an outward show of independence, yielded to our wishes in the Panama Canal tolls and Canadian fisheries' disputes, as was fitting and filial? Was not America happy to fight our war in Europe? Was not America, like Canada, willing not only to pay her own war expenses but also to loan us money for ours? Was not America, like Canada, content to seek nothing in return for her war duty, so long as the motherland was completely indemnified in Egypt and the rest of Africa, in Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and elsewhere? Was not America as proud to be honored by knighthood and lesser titulary distinctions, as Canada was, or, rather, more proud?
Has not President Wilson cancelled the big Navy program and dutifully conceded to us the command of the seas, confident that we shall defend America against all future foes that may threaten our supremacy, just as we defended America and Canada against Germany? In matters lingual, legal and financial, fiscal, commercial, social evangelical, administrative, martial, naval, educational -- are not in all these matters the established relations of America to England, in kind -- if not precisely in degree -- identical with the relations of the other colonies and dominions to the Crown? Indeed, I might justifiably sustain the thesis that so-distant American Republic is now more happily and more closely bound to the Empire than are, for example, the ungrateful and insolent colonies which lately were the Boer Republics.
As long as President Wilson, with our Canadian-born Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Franklin Lane, with our Scotch-born Secretary of Labor, Mr. W. B. Wilson, and with our London-born Mr. Samuel Gompers, -- now controls the administration, imperial unity will daily grow more intimate and more perfect. But I regret to inform you that our committee on American Elections has reported (Appendix 38) that no matter how lavishly we finance the next election, the Wilson administration will pass, and with it, perchance, that absolute administrative control over the Legislature, which has meant so much to us. Willful, wanton, and wicked men will unite in the next election with labor and those industrialists whose profit-patriotism ratio has been allowed to fall below the threshold of loyalty to imperial unity. These combined forces of disorder will seek to elect a legislature which will attempt to make the administration responsible to it, instead of to us and our auxiliaries, and will strive to rend the bonds which bind this colony to the motherland, for the sole, selfish, and seditious purpose of erecting a separate, national, economic unit independent of us -- and even perhaps, competing with us. We must, therefore, hasten to remove from this legislature, with the aid of our supporters here, such of its powers as could be used against imperial unity.
J. P. MORGAN & CO. ARE BRITISH AGENTS
In the financial world the Anglo-American alliance is a well-established fact. And as the consortium for China, and the security company for Mexico show, our brokers and their aids have become the unchallenged financiers of the world. We have been particularly fortunate in our fiscal agents here, Messrs Pierpont Morgan & Company. The commissions they charged, both as our brokers and purchasing agents no doubt were high enough to warrant their summary treatment at the hands of Mr. Balfour during his visit here. But they advantageously placed our many bond issues and every American holder of these bonds having now a stake in the Empire is a defender of its integrity and a potential supporter of its extension over here. Their services in putting this country into the war have not been altruistic, but they were nonetheless effective. They contributed liberally to our Americanization campaign. They ousted Miss Boardman, and through Messrs. Taft and H. P. Davidson they nationalized and directed the American Red Cross, and then internationalized it under the direction of Mr. H. P. Davison Through Mr. Thomas Lamont they purchased Harpers Magazine and the New York Evening Post. Through advertisers they control, they have exerted widespread influence on newspaper policy. Messrs. Lamont and Davidson gave you valuable aid at the peace conference. They loaned $200,000,000 to Japan that our ally might build a fleet to compete with America on the Pacific carrying routes. Their attempts to retain for us control of the international mercantile marine are well known to you. And I would he amiss if I did not remind you that they relieved the government of considerable embarrassment by pensioning worthily the widow of our late Ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, at a time when the antagonism of Lord Northcliffe made it impossible for us officially to do so. As the greater part of their capital is invested within the Empire. the Government of His Majesty will doubtless have opportunity to appreciate the value of the services of Messrs. Pierpont Morgan & Company.
BRITISH DUPLICITY
Through our fiscal agents here and our aids who act for other Allied countries, as Sir Clifford Sifton acts for Rumania, we have become the world's purchasers. Moreover, the war has made us the custodian of the greater part of the world's raw materials. With moneys lent to us by the American Government for war purposes, we have. acting through quasi-American companies by the aid of Mr. Connor Guthrie, obtained control of the large oil fields in California and in Costa Rica. And through the nationalization of His Majesty's Government of the Cowdray, Pearson, and Royal Dutch Shell interests in Mexico, we having become masters of the Mexican, Canadian, Rumanian, Armenian. Persian, and lessor oil fields, now largely control the oil fields of the world and thereby the world's transportation and industry. We have not yet succeeded in controlling the pipe lines owned by the Standard Oil Company, and its subsidiaries, for those companies have long been established. But, although uncontrolled companies may continue to get their oil to the seaboard, the proposed system of preferential treatment at our universal oiling stations for ships supplied at the port of departures with British oil (Appendix 37) will prevent the use of any oil but ours on the high seas.
This control would enable us to exert such pressure as would make American industrial interests amenable to His Majesty's pleasure. But it would be unwise to make disciplinary use of our fuel power before we secure remission of our $4,000,000,000 debt. Otherwise, the American industrial interests might retaliate by forcing the United States Government to exact from us the agreed interest, to maintain tariff barriers against our merchandise, and to withdraw support from the rate of exchange. Which make our labor and resources for years pay tribute to this country an unnatural, unfilial, and unthinkable proceeding. We are conducting a vigorous campaign for the cancellation of this war debt, on the grounds (a) that we fought America's fight for her for 2 years, while she was prospering in cowardice and (b) that at least the material burdens should be distributed justly, if the world is to be made safe for democracy. . Synchronously with this agitation for the remission of our debt, we are agitating for further loans of American money to rebuild our markets in Europe. There is no possibility of these two agitations endangering their mutual success, for we have repeatedly proved beyond question that the American mind cannot synchronously fix and correlate facts, with two cognate items on the statements to be judged each on its merits. Hence, we are able in a cloud of candor to state the merit of the loan -- viz, that unless the money be lent to us we cannot pay the interest on it. in these agitations we are receiving valuable, if not wholly disinterested, aid from our financial auxiliaries and fiscal agents (J. P. Morgan & Co.)
In Mexico our friends made a tentative adventure with the gallant Blanquet, but it miscarried, perhaps owing to a slight misunderstanding between the bond interests and the industrial interests. However, we are quietly continuing our work in Mexico until the United States Government shall be put in a position to take it over. An American war with Mexico would cost us nothing; it would satisfy certain American industrial interests; it would guarantee out title to the Mexican oil fields; it would humble, by impoverishing, this purse-proud people; it would give us an opportunity to show the American that he isolated in the world needs our protection against our ally, Japan; and while America was busy warring we would enjoy a clear field in the European, African, and Asiatic trade, together with the monopoly of the markets of a South America hostile to the Monroe Doctrinaries of democracy. For these reasons our press is fully reporting Mexican outrages, but a strange apathy seems to have fallen on the people, an apathy from which only border raids or special atrocities will arouse them. . .
LEAGUE OF NATIONS
In other words, we must quickly act to transfer its dangerous sovereignty from this colony to the custody of the Crown. We must, in short, now bring America with in the Empire. God helping us, we can do no other. The first visible step in this direction has been taken; President Wilson has accepted and sponsored the plan for a League of Nations which we prepared for him. We have wrapped this plan in the peace treaty so that the world must accept from us the League or a continuance of the war. The League is in substance the Empire with America admitted on the same basis as our other colonies.
The effectiveness of the League will depend upon the power with which it can be endowed, and that will hinge upon the skill with which the cardinal functions of the American legislature are transferred to the executive Council of the League. Any abrupt change may startle the ignorant American masses and rouse them to action against it. And us. Our best policy, therefore, would be to appoint President Wilson first president of the League. When the fourteen points seemed to our Government twice seven daily sins, I analyzed with care his diverse and numerous notes and discourses and divided them into their two parts: One, the Wilson creed, "I believe in open covenants and in the freedom of the seas," etc.; and two, the Wilson commandments, "Might shall not prevail over right, the strong shall not oppress the weak," etc. From the "too proud to fight" and "he kept us out of war" episodes, I ventured to deduce (September 29, 1918, Appendix 36) that he would at the appropriate moment oblige us by transferring the "not" from his commandments to his creed without as much as a "may I not," and in such a way that his people will be none the wiser.
The plain people of this country are inveterate and incurable hero worshipers. They are, however, sincere in sentiment; and for a hero to become established in the public shrine, he must first succeed in getting his name associated with the phrases and slogans that seem to reflect the undefined aspirations of the average inhabitant. When this has been accomplished the allegiance is at once transferred from the sentiment to the sentimentalist, from the ideal to the maker of the longed-for phrase. No one understands this peculiarity of the native behavior better than Mr. Wilson, which accounts largely for his exceptional usefulness to us. He knows that Americans will not scrutinise any performance too closely, provided their faith in the performer has been adequately established. Mr. Wilson has since made the transfer amid American acclamation. In the same way he will now be able to satisfy them that far from surrendering their independence to the League they are actually extending their sovereignty by it. He alone can satisfy them on this. He alone can father an anti-Bolshevik act which judicially interpreted -- will enable appropriate punitive measures to be applied to any American who may be unwise enough to assert that America must again declare her independence. And he alone, therefore, is qualified to act for us as first president of the League.
I confess I am a little uneasy lest in the exigencies of diplomatic combat, Mr. Wilson may not have found the joy he anticipated from matching his wits against the best brains of Europe. He is easily slighted and remarkably vindictive. It is the highest degree desirable that any traces of resentment his mind may be harboring against us should be radically removed before he returns. I would, therefore, suggest that the work of adulation planned in Appendix 32 should be instructed to consult the inventories I have prepared (appendixes 45-83), which show that he is now surfeited with diamond stomachers, brooches, and bracelets, Gobelin tapestries, mosaics, and vases, gold caskets, and plates.
The program we arranged for his visit to England (appendix 33) including a royal reception at Buckingham Palace, with which the President was well pleased. The fruitful visit of the President to the King should be returned as early as possible. I would suggest that as soon as the President is settled once more in the White House, the visit should be returned by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, who would be an admirable representative of His Royal Sire, and would satisfy President Wilson's sense of fitness. It is perhaps unfortunate that there is not a Presidential daughter of the Prince's age, for such a union would have greatly advanced our purpose not only with the American people, but also with a President who feels that lese majeste should be punishable with 20 years' imprisonment, and who acts as if he considered his son-in-law, Mr. McAdoo, as his heir apparent.
PRESIDENT WILSON'S PECULIARITIES
Too great attention cannot be given at this time to the Presidential peculiarities, for his devotion to our purpose will depend upon our ability to pander to them. I would suggest that the new ambassador to Washington should be chosen only after the most careful thought. He should not be too clever, lest Mr. Wilson shun him. He should be able to evince hilarity at the most venerable jest, no matter how often he may have to suffer it. This qualification is vitally important whether Mr. Wilson's "humor" is merely assumed to perpetuate the "human" tradition established for Presidents by Lincoln, or whether it is studied descent from Jovelike isolation to Jovelike jest. The ambassador should be a Wilson worshiper. I enclose (appendix 34) resumes of the methods of worship practiced by various members of his inner circle. The appointee would do well to familiarize himself with them, and my services are at his disposal should be desire more extended information on the method of worship he selects. He should of course be a commoner, that we may not lose democratic favor -- preferably a professor -- and sufficiently subsidized to be able to entertain regally. If a list were submitted to Mr. Wilson he might be prepared to indicate all of whom he did not approve, and the one against whom he expressed no prejudices should be appointed. The pressing need of our embassy at Washington is not so much an ambassador as a gentleman in waiting to the President.
I would suggest that his powers as President of the League of Nations be left undefined for the present. He may be trusted to assume what power he can and to use it in the interests of the Crown.
A grant of a privy purse of $100,000,000 would prove most acceptable to him and would be useful for private espionage, private wars, Siberian railroads, etc. His appointment should be for life, and you might definitely promise him that any instructions he may care to convey concerning his successor will receive the most careful attention of His Majesty's Government.
Nevertheless, it would be well quickly to reinforce him in the presidency of the League of Nations by staging the first session of the League in Washington. This will convince these simple people that they are the League and its power resides in them. Their pride in this power should be exalted. Perhaps you, yourself, might condescend to visit this country. Or, if that be impracticable, you might send such noble statesmen, and stately noblemen, as will suffice to make of the first League session a spectacle of unsurpassed brilliance. Indeed, it would be well to commence at an early date a series of spectacles by which the mob may be diverted from any attempt to think too much of matters beyond their province. The success of the Joffre, Vivianti Balfour, and other missions in amusing the people while the country was quietly put into the war shows that similar missions would likewise amuse the people -- while the country was quietly put into the League. I would suggest that missions of thanksgiving to America be organized, and that His Majesty the King of the Belgians, Cardinal Mercier, Field Marshal Foch, Venizelos, and an eminent Italian or two be sent seriatim.
PROPAGANDA
While awaiting these diversions for the vulgar, we are incessantly instructing them in the wonders of the League. Its praises are thundered by our press, decreed by our college presidents, and professed by our professors. Our authors, writers. and lecturers are analyzing its selected virtues for whomsoever will read or listen. As will be seen from appendix 39, circulars issued by the League of Nations committee, we have enlisted 8,000 pulpiteers or propagandists for the League. We have organized international and national synods, consistories, committees, conferences, convocations, conventions, councils, congresses, and assemblies, as well as their State, municipal, and district equivalents, to herald the birth of the League as the dawn of universal peace. A special Sunday will be observed as League Sunday in all churches. In this connection, may I remark that the appointment of Mr. Raymond Fosdick to the Secretariat of the League, has pleased not only the Rockefeller interests but also the less disingenuous uplifters, for it stamps the League as an endowed organization for promiscuous uplifting, under the triple crown of religion, respectability, and finance. Agriculturalists, bankers, brokers, chartered accounts, chemists, and all other functional groups capable of exerting organized professional, business, financial, or social pressure are meeting to endorse the League in the name of peace, progress, and prosperity.
The World's Peace Foundation has issued for us a series of League of Nations pamphlets, which, with our other literature, tax the mails to the limit of their capacity. Our film concerns are preparing an epoch-making picture entitled "The League of Nations." In brief, our entire system of thought control is working ceaselessly, tirelessly, ruthlessly, to insure the adoption of the League. And it will be adopted, for business wants peace, the righteous cannot resist a covenant, and the politicians, after shadow-boxing for patronage purposes, will yield valiantly lest the fate of the wanton and wilful pursue them.
By these means we hope smoothly to overcome all effective opposition on the on the part of our colony America to entering the League -- that is, the Empire. As soon as the League is functioning properly, His Majesty in response to loyal and repeated solicitation, might graciously be pleased to consent to restore to this people their ancient right to petition at the foot of the throne; to confer the ancient rank and style of governor general upon our Ambassador, that this colony may enjoy a status inferior to no other colony's; to establish the primacy of the Metropolitan See, with the Right Reverend Dr. Manning as first primate; to appoint Mr. Elihu Root lord chief justice of the colony, and to nominate Messrs. W. H. Taft, Nicholas Murray Butler, J. P. Morgan, Elizabeth Marbury, Adolph Ochs, and Thomas Lamont to the colonial privity council; as a special mark of royal and imperial condescension, to rename the Federal Capital of the Colony Georgetown, and lest section jealousy be thereby excited, to grant royal charters to the cities of Boston and Chicago entitling them thereafter to style themselves, respectively, Kingston and Guelf -- concisely to bestow in time and in measure such tokens of the bounty of the Crown as the fealty of the colonists merit.
BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION URGED
Since that memorable day, September 19, 1877, on which the late Cecil Rhodes devised by will a fund "to and for the establishment, promotion, and development of a secret society -- the true aim of which and object of which shall be the extension of British rule throughout the world, and especially the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire" -- the energy and intelligence of England has not been spent in vain. It would perhaps be presumptuous of me to refer here to the admirable services rendered not only by LORD NORTHCLlFFE (the probable author of the report) and the corps of 12,000 trained workers whom he introduced here during the year as purchasing agents under the direction of Sir Campbell Stuart, but also the right Honorable Arthur J. Balfour, and by Lord Reading. But my report would be incomplete without a reference to Mr. Andrew Carnegie, of Skibo Castle, Sutherlandshire, and New York City. He unobtrusively assumed the mantle of the late Mr. Cecil Rhodes. Through the Carnegie Foundation, he obtained such control over the professorate of this country that even President Wilson was a suppliant for a Carnegie pension before this people and allied gratitude placed him beyond prospective want.
The Carnegie League to Enforce Peace and its affiliate League of Small Nations are even now leading the van in our fight. In the North American Review, June 1893, Mr. Carnegie wrote: "Let men say what they will, I say that as surely as the sun in the heavens once shone upon Britain and America united, so surely is it one morning to rise, to shine upon, to greet again, the reunited state -- the British-American union."
The object of Cecil Rhodes is almost attained. The day prophesied by Mr. Carnegie is near at hand, the day when the American Colonies will be in all things one with the motherland, one and indivisible. Only the last great battle remains to be. fought -- the battle to compel her acceptance of the terms of the League of Nations."
Colonel House
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